[2009-04-11] Sphericon dice
A sphericon is a right bicone with one side (that is, one half of the bicone cut along a plane containing the axis of rotation) rotated 90 degrees relative to the other. The resulting solid is oloid-like. The derivation from a bicone suggested to me, by analogy, the possibility of polyhedral dice based on the sphericon just as common d10s are based on the bicone. (See my alphabet dice page for an application of biconal/bipyramidal dice.) Basically, the idea is to use faceted sphericons for dice instead of faceted bicones. The movie shows a 16-sided faceted sphericon, which, if the faces were numbered, would be a fair 16-sided die. The number of sides must be a multiple of eight; otherwise, there will be certain positions in which the die will rest with an edge rather than a face in the vertical position.
last modified 2009-04-11